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On September 11, 2001, 4 industrial planes have been hijacked by terrorists. One airplane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, one other went into the south.
The Pentagon was additionally hit by a hijacked airplane, and the fourth crash-landed in a discipline in Pennsylvania after passengers fought again and brought about the airplane to overlook its supposed goal, the U.S. Capitol Building.
The dreadful assaults despatched shock and horror via the nation and the world. The assaults claimed the lives of hundreds.
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There are only a few survivor accounts, however a lot of those that did survive the horrific occasions of that day have shared their tales. One of these tales has change into generally known as “the miracle of Stairwell B.”
At 8:46 a.m., a hijacked airplane slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, prompting a rush of emergency personnel to the scene. Shortly after, at 9:03 a.m., a hijacked airplane flew into the south tower.
The south tower was the primary to break down at 9:59 a.m., adopted by the north tower at 10:28 a.m. Very few folks survived the collapse of the towers, however a bunch of emergency personnel and one civilian did survive – with one another’s assist.
There have been practically 3,000 folks killed on September 11, 2001. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP through Getty Images)
When the south tower collapsed, a bunch of firefighters and one police officer have been nonetheless contained in the north tower. This group included David Lim, a Port Authority Okay-9 officer; Capt. John “Jay” Jonas, FDNY’s chief from Ladder Co. 6; firefighter Bill Butler; firefighter Sal D’Agostino; firefighter Matt Komorowski; and battalion chief Richard Picciotto.
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With the collapse of the south tower, they have been ordered to evacuate and started to make their descent down stairwell B.
When they reached the twenty second flooring, the firefighters from Ladder Co. 6 discovered a distraught lady named Josephine Harris, who was a bookkeeper for the Port Authority. She was exhausted and couldn’t transfer on her personal attributable to an injured leg. The firefighters took Harris with them for the rest of their descent and carried her down the constructing.
At 10:28 a.m., the group began listening to a rumble as they walked down stairway B of the north tower.
Miraculously, the 12 firefighters and one officer, together with Harris, all survived the collapse as they have been tucked away in stairway B, a staircase on the heart of the constructing’s core.
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How the group survived the collapse continues to be considerably of a thriller. That stairwell appeared to offer safety for the survivors.
“The tower got here down like a peeling banana, and it peeled round us,” Jonas stated through USA Today.
All 14 survivors within the stairwell not solely escaped the north tower ruins, additionally they had no life-threatening accidents.
The National 9/11 Memorial & Museum in NYC is stuffed with artifacts from September 11, 2001, together with the stairwell that miraculously supplied shelter for a number of who have been trapped. (Chris Melzer/image alliance through Getty Images)
The firefighters that have been with Harris have described her as their “guardian angel.”
“We had a particular bond together with her. She was our guardian angel. If she had continued all the way down to the foyer after which our constructing got here down, we would not be round,” Komorowski stated in an interview with CBS News.
The firefighters and Harris remained shut within the years after 9/11 till her demise in 2011.
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During her funeral, the firefighters of Ladder Co. 6 have been her pallbearers.
Today, Stairwell B is on show on the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
